Skaugum

An unfinished German hull

The ship was launched at the Germaniawerft in Kiel in January 1940 as Ostmark, four months after the outbreak of war. She was a sister to the Steiermark, which the German navy converted into the raider Kormoran and which sank HMAS Sydney off the Western Australian coast in November 1941 with the loss of her entire company. Ostmark herself was never completed. She was towed to a backwater and lay unfinished for the duration.1

When British forces entered Kiel in May 1945 she was claimed as a prize of war and placed under the Ministry of Transport. In 1948 the Ministry sold her to Isak M. Skaugen, a Norwegian owner of freighters and tankers. A year later, having obtained a contract to carry displaced persons for resettlement outside Europe, Skaugen had her rebuilt for the trade at Kiel. She emerged as Skaugum in April 1949 and made her maiden voyage nine years after her launch. She measured 552 by 66 feet, registered 11,620 tons, and made fifteen knots on twin screws driven by diesel-electric machinery.1

How the charter worked

Selection happened long before anyone saw the ship. Australian selection teams working with IRO staff interviewed applicants in the camps of the western zones, medical and security screening followed, and those accepted signed a two-year contract binding them to work wherever the Commonwealth directed. Skaugum's loading ports were Naples for the Italian staging route and Bremerhaven for the northern German camps. Passengers were moved to the port by train from resettlement centres and embarkation camps.12

The rebuild put dormitory accommodation into what had been cargo space, with communal washing arrangements and men and women berthed separately. A Ukrainian family who sailed on her first Australian voyage recorded that food was plentiful and that they were well treated, but that seasickness was a serious problem for many; their seventeen-month-old son arrived in poor health. Their journey from Germany, counting staging as well as the sea passage, took almost three months.3

Sickness on board could be worse than seasickness. The Age reported that the crowded Aden transfer voyage arriving at Fremantle on 6 January 1950 carried a measles outbreak in which fifty-six children were treated and a further twenty were in the ship's hospital with other illnesses. A three-year-old boy died during the passage.2

On arrival passengers were counted off the roll and moved inland by train. Melbourne arrivals went to Bonegilla, Fremantle arrivals to Northam, and from those reception centres to holding centres such as Cowra and Benalla and to the jobs their contracts assigned.23

Dated voyages

The first Australian voyage left Naples on 2 May 1949 and reached Melbourne on 31 May. A second left Naples on 4 July and reached Melbourne on 28 July. A third left Naples on 31 August and reached Sydney on 28 September. In November 1949 she left Naples for Newcastle with 1,700 passengers.21

In December 1949, crossing the Indian Ocean back to Europe empty, she was diverted to Aden. The IRO ship Anna Salen had left Naples on 1 December with about 1,600 people aboard and had broken down after leaving Aden. Skaugum took on her passengers and carried them to Fremantle, arriving on 6 January 1950; 1,543 were landed in Western Australia and taken by train to the Northam camp.12

Four further Australian voyages followed during 1950: from Naples to Melbourne in March, from Bremerhaven to Fremantle in June and again in August, and from Naples to Melbourne in November. The Western Australian landing figures record 1,823 on 12 July 1950 and 1,854 on 24 September 1950, while the passenger rolls date the corresponding Fremantle arrivals to 14 July and 29 September. A final Fremantle arrival on 11 December 1950 is also recorded.12

Ukrainians on board

Skaugum is one of the few ships for which a Ukrainian share of the passengers can be quoted from a passenger roll rather than inferred. Three of her Fremantle lists carry a nationality column. On the 6 January 1950 arrival, of 553 transcribed entries 52 are recorded as Ukrainian, behind Polish at 256 and Yugoslavian at 104. On the 14 July 1950 arrival, of 618 transcribed entries 38 are recorded as Ukrainian. On the small surviving fragment of the 11 December 1950 list, one of 26 entries is Ukrainian.2

These are shares of partial transcriptions, not of whole ships. The 6 January 1950 page states that 1,570 people were carried against the 553 names transcribed. The proportions cannot be scaled up to the full complement, and the nationality recorded is the one the resettlement authorities assigned, which for many people from Galicia and Volhynia was Polish rather than Ukrainian.2

Named Ukrainian passengers appear in family records. Anna Chlebnikowski, born at Monaczyn, and her husband Nicholai, born at Ternopil, landed at Port Melbourne on 31 May 1949 from the Skaugum with two small sons, Anna's father Wasil and her uncle Peter. Nicholai was sent to tank maintenance at Puckapunyal under his two-year contract at six pounds four shillings a week before tax, with one pound ten shillings deducted for board, while his wife and children went first to Cowra and then, on 20 October 1949, to Benalla.3

Afterwards

Skaugum continued to carry migrants to Australia into the middle of the 1950s, with recorded arrivals through 1953, 1954, 1955 and 1956 after the International Refugee Organisation had wound up. In 1964 she was sold to Ocean Shipping and Enterprises, renamed Ocean Builder and put under the Liberian flag.12

Her Australian legacy is mostly in the reception centres. Passengers she landed at Melbourne and Fremantle filled huts at Bonegilla, Northam, Cowra and Benalla, and Ukrainian families who came ashore from her are recorded in the archives of those camps.31